Red
Jacket was born into the Wolf clan in a Seneca village near present-day
Geneva. During the Revolutionary war, he was a messenger for British
officers, and received his namesake coat as a reward. His talents
lay in diplomacy and oratory, a skill long prized in Iroquois
political culture. In the 1780s Red Jacket assumed the role of
council orator and with it the name Segoyewatha, traditionally
translated as "He Keeps Them Awake." His oratory marked
nearly every major treaty council between whites and Senecas from
the 1780s to the 1820s, usually articulating a diplomatic middle
course between two competing factions; the followers of Cornplanter,
who pursued accommodation with the U.S. and the supporters of
the Mohawk Joseph Brant, who allied with the British. Red Jacket's
positions were consistent; the Iroquois Confederacy should remain
neutral in disputes between the United States and British Canada;
broker an honest peace between the new republic and the Shawnees,
Miamis, and other western Indians with whom it remained at war;
resist Christian proselytization; and maintain a land base within
the boundaries claimed by the state of New York.

Despitehis
vigorous opposition during and after treaty councils, Red Jacket
signed the Big Tree Treaty. He became a celebrity among white
audiences captivated by stereotypes of the "Vanishing Indian."
Red Jacket died at his home and was buried on the Buffalo Creek
reservation in 1830. Against his dying wishes, Red Jacket was
re-interred, at Forest Lawn cemetery in Buffalo.

Information
gathered from a book by Anthony F.C. Wallace, The Death and Rebirth
of the Seneca (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970); and online at
the Encyclopedia of North American Indians: http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/naind/html/na_032200_redjacket.htm

(Sullivan
Campaign of the Revolutionary War: The Impact on Livingston County,
page 30)